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Nicaragua has undergone several major upheavals in the last three decades that have fundamentally shaped and reshaped society. The Sandinista government (1979-1990) ended with the election of Violeta Chamorro in 1990 that ushered in 16 years of neoliberal government. In 2006 former president and leader of the current Sandinista Party, Daniel Ortega, was reelected to the presidency. At every step, education has been an essential component of the struggle to shape the state according to certain ideological precepts. Each administration has produced its own educational reforms that are ostensibly in the name of improving quality, but more precisely about developing schools consistent with the philosophy of the ruling classes. In this study, I seek to examine the Nicaraguan educational system as a site of multiple global and local processes that interact to produce lived experiences for teachers and students in and out of the classroom. In examining the most recent iteration of educational reforms and their effects in the communities of San Marcos, Estelí and Bluefields, I ask the questions: What role or function does education play in society? How does it “work” to (in most cases) normalize certain values, ideas and beliefs? And what forms do resistance and acquiescence to these processes take in an educational system like that of Nicaragua that has numerous internal and external forces attempting to condition it in contrasting ways? Major themes that emerge from the research include the prominence of social, historical and geographical factors that people use to fashion their language and perceptions of the world and the dominant influence of local power relations in conditioning people’s behaviors and actions. Analysis of responses to the current educational reform efforts demonstrates that local social connections and networks are paramount to studies of ideology and hegemony. The overriding message from Nicaragua is that chronic underfunding and constant reform have weakened the ability of the educational system to disseminate ideas, beliefs and values, particularly when they run counter to those of other powerful institutions in society. / text

Over recent years there has been considerable debate about the purpose, value and expectations of higher education. The relationship between government and the higher education sector has become focussed on the efficiency and effectiveness of the sector and on the experience of students as customers. These notions are contested, and sit within a broader context that includes consumerism, marketization, globalisation, and public sectorreform more generally. In higher education, this debate has been polarised and sometimes characterised within institutions as “collegiate” versus “managerial”. These tensions are explored not simply as competing perspectives but as ciphers for competing ideologies. The study considered how academic managers have negotiated this terrain, and the contribution of management to the health of an institution. Qualitative interviews were carried out with senior academic managers in 12 post-92 UK universities, which were regarded as particularly susceptible to economic pressures affecting the public sector following the financial crash of 2008. Conceptual and practical issues relating to the use of interviews were addressed, and the limitations of the study explored. A number of broad themes were identified: management orientation, about how the organisation is run; institutional orientation, about institutionalpurpose and journey, past and future; orientation towards academic staff and students; and, student related performance measures. The inter-relations between themes, and the patterns in participant responses were examined. Management actions can affect institutional performance for good or ill, and the bounded nature of the relationship between academics and managers is acknowledged. In this context, advice is offered that may be of benefit to university academic managers balancing competing expectations in complex and challenging financial times.

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For most of the 20th century the dominant aim of Swedish educational policy was an integrated public school system under national state control. During the post-war era (1945–1989) this policy led to Sweden having one of the most centralized and integrated school systems in the world. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, there was a profound change in Swedish education policy towards decentralization, deregulation and marketization of the school system. The aim of this thesis is to provide a deeper understanding of the nature and causes of this shift in education policy. The thesis draws from a theoretical framework consisting of Critical Realism, curriculum theory and Neo-Marxism. From a Neo- Marxist perspective the configuration of state education policy is understood as a dominant education ideology. The empirical material consists of state policy documents which are understood as an expression of the dominant education ideology in society. The results indicate a shift in the dominant education ideology in Sweden between 1969 and – 1999: from an emphasis on state governance and goals of equivalence, equality and participation in the school system during the 1970s, towards increasing skepticism regarding state regulation and an emphasis on decentralization and aims to increase parental and pupil influence in the school system during the 1980s, to a dominance of private influence via school choice and competition in the school system during the 1990s. From a theoretical perspective consisting of Critical Realism and curriculum theory, this shift in education policy and restructuring of the school system is understood in relation to economic crises, a rightward shift in politics and the dominance of neoliberal ideas in Sweden during the 1980s and 1990s.

This thesis is looking into the history of the village Řehlovice in the Northbohemian region in years 1880 - 1970. This village was located till the end of the Second World War deep in the mostly by Germans inhabited territory named Sudetenland. The thesis wants in the time span study the changes of the local social conditions and the constitution of the inhabitants and other interesting themes whose are related to the situation before and after the Second World War which was a big turning point. In this time span changes the peaceful coexistence of two nations under the influence of the Nazi-ideology. This is the culmination point of the thesis, because it gains information from in German written and from in Czech written and till today unpublished eleven local chronics. It shows data and stories from small locality which could help to map unresearched places of history. The result of the thesis is a close look on these data and their evaluation. Parts of the thesis are illustrative graphs and illustrations taken from unpublished sources. They were given from the Czechs that staid but also from the deported Germans. Years after 1948 are briefly adapted for the comparison. Information about local education, parish and the gathering of deported Germans are situated in separated chapters.